Susan Leopold, PhD of Linden, Virginia is an ethnobotanist, plant advocate, and the executive director of United Plant Savers [a non-profit focused on the conservation of medicinal plants]. The theme of this episode is history: a post-civil war connection to Susan's property, her Patawomeck ancestry [including the Pocahontas controversy], and the centuries-old ginseng trade which is currently linked to a shadowy herbal black market. She teaches us about plant conservation, the at-risk tool, sandalwood, osha, and related botanical issues. When it comes to story time, Susan shares her personal experience living in the Amazon jungle where she received a potent ayahuasca message and gathered folklore from the indigenous group she lived with during her ethnobotanical study. Upon returning home she was startled to find similar themes in the folktales of Virginia's Bull Run Mountains. In closing, Susan explains her specially crafted spagyric hemp products grown right here on her property and I recount our synchronistic trip to Carl Jung's lakeside castle, Bollingen Tower, in Switzerland.
Check out United Plant Savers on Instagram and become a member to receive the annual Journal of Medicinal Plant Conservation. For a behind-the-scenes look follow the United Plant Savers botanical sanctuary in Ohio. For Susan's CBD hemp products, visit her Paris Apothecary online store. And for more information regarding Virginia's Patawomeck tribe click the link.
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